Blogging is rad. It is cost-effective, it is relatively simple, and it (or can be) awfully fun. And it gets eyeballs, that advertiser currency that is more valuable than the Euro — for now, anyway.

"So how come advertising on blogs is so dirt cheap?" asks Rob Crumpler in Restoring the Ad Equilibrium for Bloggers. The article discusses the current imbalance between bloggers getting paid what they deserve for high-quality content that aggregates traffic and advertisers accessing high-performance social
media inventory. Right now, despite all the hype -actually going back several years- bloggers still don’t have any "street cred." He argues that this should not be the case: "The Internet has turned into a million “mini” Oprah
Winfreys who have a strong pull with consumers. That is advertiser gold."

So, if advertisers still have money to spend in the coming years (and so far people think they will) then this is one of the places it will go. Clicks, conversions galore. If you are blogger and have a good relationship with your readers due to the quality and relevance of your content, the advertisers will come. But will they know where to look? "Sit tight," says Rob. They’ll find you.

Platform-wise, it’s only going to get better. With companies like Six Apart unloading LiveJournal to Siberia and focusing more on developing the community features of Movable Type, I’m feeling like a major shift is on the way. Social networks, move over. Or rather, get ready to be mashed up with blogs.

Communities–not individual bloggers–are the power brokers on today’s
Web. It’s readers, en masse, who move markets. Six Apart’s goal to
empower bloggers with tools that turn readers into active community
participants could leverage this power shift.  — Rafe Needleman, WebWare

Meanwhile, the corporate world is still struggling. Not really knowing how to deal with this rather unpredictable teenager, has finally formed an organization. Called, uniquely, The Blog Council, its goal is to share corporate blogging
strategies and develop standards-based best practices. More like ask each other, what-in-the-hell-are-we-supposed-to-be-doing-with-this-thing. Cisco Systems, Dell, Wells Fargo, and Microsoft are among the global brands in the group.

One question that might be popping up in this forum is whether or not to outsource. Is the best blogger an employee of the company? Or a professional, albeit(he/she) an outsider?

I just got a new mp3 player. It is small, it is sharp, and I can do things on it that they would never have dreamed of in 1985. (I know, this is not really an impressive claim.) I also know that you don’t care about other people’s new gadgets – unless it is a product that you yourself are thinking of buying, and then you’ll read about a trillion reviews of it before you purchase. Or at least 1 in 4 of you will.

But let me tell you of one of the key features on this little guy that many of you all-in-one-rs out there might relate to. It’s the text reader. When I first saw it, I was like, oh cool. I can read stuff on-the-go. Granted, you’re not going to be poring over a 12-page brief on a tiny little screen, or read Baudolino in 100-word spurts. Or are you?

Amazon, not willing to give in to the Sony Reader, or the countless other gadgets out there with text capabilities, has come out with a $399 Kindle — a replacement for that long-honored but perhaps tired item, The Book. "Books are the last bastion of analog," declared  Amazon’s Jeff Kozos to a Newsweek reporter. The article, which explores the concept of making long-form reading truly digital. A debate will surely ensue.

Some Newsweek readers have already pointed out their issues with it, like lack of illustrations (rendering books about Frank Lloyd Wright or Michelangelo practically useless) or that ‘glue, ink, and paper’ feel. Other more practical issues are those of cost: like many first-generation models, there are kinks in the woodwork and people will most likely hold out for reworked versions rather than jump to buy their dears a Kindle for this holiday season. Strange, too, their marketing campaign. It hasn’t reached anybody who’s anybody, as far as I can see. In fact, just this morning I received the High-Tech Gift for the Holidays from Amazon and guess what’s not on their Top 20 list?  Right on. Their own Kindle.

In the same vein, but slightly more interesting, is what’s going on in China with digital books. Moshimo Komiga, a twisting tale of high school romance, was composed entirely on a mobile phone by an "avid texter" named Rin. It’s been done before, but now more first-timers are embracing the format. Sounds about right for China, who is gobbling up technology like a starved cat. And not hesitating to put themselves really out there. Out there, as in online. An IAC/JWT study (via CNN Money) showed that Chinese youth are leaping ahead even American youth in their consumption and personal expression through digital channels.

‘Twill be interesting to see what happens as the Tweens – who are actually spending more time on their mobiles, and less time on the Internet than the Teens – grow up and gain more spending power. Mobile marketing may be it. And text readers, combined with mobile phone technology, may be even it-ter.

Thought getting tagged by the SF DPT was a downer? AdTeractive got slammed with a $650,000 fine by the FTC for "tricking" consumers
into signing up at third-party sites by offering
"free" goods, like laptops, iPods, flat and other merchandise. They operated under the domains of FreeGiftWorld.com and SamplePromotionsGroup.com.

One hundred (million) dollar prize goes to the person who scours the FTC’s Dot Com Disclosures for the exact clause that they used to smack down Adteractive’s activities. Note, however, that this blog does not fall under the category of "advertising" and therefore does not have to "tell the truth and not mislead consumers" nor do we have to substantiate claims. Translation: You.Don’t.Get.Any.Money.

So, add this to the FTC’s other online concerns, such as user tracking and privacy issues, web analytics, behavioral targeting, and so on. Should they regulate more? Consumerists say yay, while Microsoft, Yahoo, and those other big kids say nay.

Next question — When is the FTC going to crack down on the Free Credit Report folks?